Chris Murumets, CEO of LOGiQ3 Corp, discusses how developing a strong organizational culture can drive performance. He outlines LOGiQ3's journey to prioritize culture, such as creating simple goals and quirky guiding principles called "maxims." Regular cultural measurement and teams to promote values help embed the culture. Murumets advocates connecting culture to purpose and promises to employees and clients. He provides steps for others, like aligning actions to values and considering project-based structures.

1. Developing a Culture to
Drive Performance
Chris Murumets
CEO
LOGiQ3 Corp.

2. My Goal Today
1. Make clear my opinions on culture and how that
ties to performance – people and organizational
2. Tell the LOGiQ3 culture story
3. Provide specific steps you can take if you want
to hop on a similar path.
4. Share some of our reference material and
information sources.
2

3. I am Not
An HR expert
An organizational design expert
A person who has dedicated his life to the
pursuit of human behaviour and
psychology
An Actuary
An Underwriter
3

4. What I Will Do
Tell a story about how I helped build a company
in extremely difficult economic times, in a specific
industry that didn’t exist before and while keeping
a lot of very talented people engaged
Explain how we have created a passion about
the organization (and why that can be good and
bad)
Describe how this has allowed us to be one of
Canada’s fastest growing companies for the past
4 years
4

5. How I Will Wrap Up
List very specific steps we took, and in my opinion,
every organization should take, to build a
performance-driven culture
5

6. Reality of today
We are a knowledge-based society / industry.
It’s all about people!
It is difficult to retain quality people
People turnover is expensive
As an organization, you MUST differentiate in non-
traditional ways
“Job for life” is long gone
Everyone has a voice, and a large audience.
6

7. The Problem –
The “soul-less” organization
Historically, the majority of organizations lacked a
corporate soul.
People want to connect to people, not a
company. It’s personal.
If a company is a product of its people, it must
have a soul, a personality, a belief system.
Companies, big and small, are striving to make
that personal connection
7

8. The Holstee Manifesto
8

9. G Adventures
- Core Values
9

10. HP 2012 Slogan…
10

11. THE JOURNEY / QUEST /
PILGRIMAGE …
11

12. The LOGiQ3 Journey
First came “Freedom to Think”
The dream of taking operational risk from
others and building a cool business
around it
Next came LOGiQ3
Then we had to figure out how to make
money … which quickly got back to people
12

13. When culture became king
- Delivering Happiness
The CEO and Founder, Tony
Hsieh, claimed that a focus
on people and culture can
create value and a
fantastic business.
This brought a very real
culture conversation to
LOGiQ3.
13

14. The Zappos Way – not exactly for
insurance, but a start
14

15. Zappos quirky
15

16. Delivering Happiness – Key Quotes
The hardest thing to do is build trust, but if the trust
exists, you can accomplish so much more.
The best team members have a positive influence
on one another and everyone they encounter.
They strive to eliminate cynicism and negative
interactions.
The Zappos communication policy “Be Real and
use your best judgment.”
A quote from Bertice Berry “When you walk with
purpose, you collide with Destiny”
16

17. Fast Company September 2010 –
The Introduction to Maxims
Nine years ago, he recalls, "Phil wanted us to
work on a new mission statement." The
previous one -- "To be the No. 1 sports-and-
fitness company in the world" -- was old news.
Parker's choice: "To bring inno-vation and
inspiration to every athlete in the world. (And if
you have a body, you're an athlete.)" He also
put together nine maxims, quirky guiding
principles for Nike. The one he thinks about
most is No. 6, "Be a sponge. Curiosity is life.
Assumption is death. Look around." It's a nod to
his grandmother Helen Parker, who spent hour
upon hour with her quiet grandson, walking in
the woods, sharing her observations about the
world. "She was engaged and learning new
things until she passed," Parker says. "That
was always her advice to me. And it really
worked.”
17

18. Design Thinking
“A discipline that uses the
designer’s sensibility and
methods to match people’s
needs with what is
technologically feasible and
what a viable business strategy
can convert into customer value
and market opportunities” – Tim
Brown, IDEO
18

19. The Design of Business – Key Quotes
The traditional structure, functional:
“People define their work as “my responsibilities”, not
“our responsibilities”.
Alternative structure – project-based:
“Flow to the work”
“But the solution is expected to come from the team,
not the quarterback”
“Rewards accrue not to those who run big businesses
or large staff but to those who solve wicked problems
– those with no fixed definition or solution.”
“A tough design challenge could be one of the best
retention tools a company has today for its best
innovators.”
19

20. Mojo, Maslow and a certain Joie de
Vivre
Self
Actualization
Esteem
Social/Belonging
Safety
Physiological
20

21. Relationship Truth 1 :
The Employee Pyramid
Meaning
(Transformation) Creates Inspiration
Recognition
(Success) Creates Loyalty
Creates Base
Money
(Survival) Motivation
21

22. Relationship Truth 2 :
The Customer Pyramid
Meets
Unrecognized Creates
Needs
(Transformation) Evangelism
Meets Desires Creates
(Success)
Commitment
Meets Expectations Creates
(Survival)
Satisfaction
22

23. Relationship Truth 3 :
The Investor Pyramid
Legacy
(Transformation) Creates Pride of Ownership
Relationship Creates Confidence
Alignment (Success)
Creates Trust
Transaction Alignment (Survival)
23

24. The final transformational pyramid for
Joie de vivre
24

25. Peak – Key Quotes
The biggest differentiator between an average
company and a great company is the motivation
of the people within the company.
Gulati and Kletter conclude that it is just as
important for a company to manage, monitor,
and measure their relationship capital as it is to do
the same with their financial capital
25

26. In Pursuit of Elegance – Why the Best
Ideas Have Something Missing
The “eureka” moment: While
no one yet knows what exactly
that process is, what is
important to know is that
putting pressure on ourselves
to speed up or artificially
influence our brains to work
harder, or more intensely, or
more quickly, only slows down
our ability to arrive at new
insights. Ironically, when we
let go, when we escape, either
physically or mentally, we
actually speed up the
transformational process.
26

27. DOES IT WORK? DOES IT MATTER?
27

28. The Result
Zappos
Zappos went from 0 to a $1.2 billion dollar
valuation and sale to Amazon.com, in 10 years.
Joie de vivre Hotels
California’s largest boutique hotel collection. All
Joie de vivre businesses combined have an
annual revenue of $240 million.
G Adventures
Over 100 million in annual revenue
One of the largest adventure tour companies,
globally
28

29. The Result - Nike
29

30. Can’t talk Design and not mention
Apple
THE design focused company
Apple stock (Jobs Returns in 1997)
April 17, 2003 – $6.56
September 6, 2012 - $676.27
The famous “Live before you Die” Stanford
Address - the key points to me:
Dropping out and taking a calligraphy class
At approx. the 5 minute mark of the speech
Jobs makes the comment on connecting
the dots and trusting they will connect in the
future.
30

31. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO
LOGIQ3? …. HOW DID WE
PROCEED…
31

32. Simplify, simplify, simplify
We needed to simplify our purpose. Not a vision or
mission, but why do we show up every morning:
1. Make money
2. Have fun
3. Change an industry
We needed to make specific promises:
1. Coworkers – We provide you the best job you’ve
ever had and you deliver operational excellence in
everything you do.
2. Clients – we will be your favourite vendor.
32

33. LOGiQ3 Maxims
As we
Our Quirky matured, we
Guiding added
Principles specific
- Not 10 of definitions
them, but 11 - and
acceptable
behaviours
to the
maxims.
33

34. The Inspiration Wall
This process
got everyone
involved and
has become
an annual
exercise
34

35. Find a Culture Champion -
introducing…. Carmela Tedesco
35

36. ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
36

37. A Traditional Org Chart
37

38. The LOGiQ3 Work Flow
38

39. WHAT ELSE?
39

40. Challenges along the way
Passion vs. emotion
Assuming it all made sense to everyone (silence is
rarely acceptance)
Over analyzing. You can Google whatever you
want and get millions of hits; why it’s a good thing
and a bad thing. Trust your gut!
Move too slowly
Expect some failure, and that it will take a long
time
40

41. Kudos – the small things
41

42. The Culture book
42

43. The Great Workplace Model
43

44. Culture Teams (for broad participation)
1. Talent Scout
2. Learning
3. Health & Wellness
4. New Employee Mentor
5. Giving Back
6. SoundBites (Communication)
7. Clubs
8. Kudos (Rewards & Recognition)
9. F2HF (Freedom to Have Fun)
44

45. The Culture Index
We will measure culture on a regular basis.
Eventually we will expand to include other
dimensions, i.e. client feedback, but needed to
start small.
Today, we ask one question (two parts), every
month.
Are you proud to work for LOGiQ3?
Why?
45

46. NOW WHAT?
46

47. Connect the dots, your way!
There is a lot of activity out there in this space
Find what you like, what makes sense for
your organization, and take it.
Create/define/grow your corporate soul
47

48. Do this…
1. Create very simple, personal goals. This starts to
connect the people. Small bite size steps is
critical.
2. Develop your quirky guiding principles. (maxims).
Absolutely key! Steal stuff you like from others.
3. Create constant conversation around maxims to
embed in DNA.
4. Align maxims, actions and behaviours.
5. Review organizational design and consider
project based structure (many variations of this is
possible)
48

49. REFERENCE MATERIAL
49

50. If you’re interested in the subject:
Books
The Design of Business – Why design thinking is the next
competitive advantage, Roger Martin
Peak – How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from
Maslow, Chip Conley (MANY other references at the
end of every chapter)
Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh
Good to Great & Great by Choice, Jim Collins
The Progress Principle, Teresa Amabile and Steven
Kramer
What to ask the person in the Mirror, Robert Steven
Kaplan
In Pursuit of Elegance – Why the Best Ideas Have
Something Missing, Matthew E. May
50

51. If you’re interested in the subject
(cont’d):
Magazines / Sites
Fast Company – fastcompany.com
Co.Design – fastcodesign.com
Co.Exist – fastcoexist.com
Co.Create – fastcocreate.com
Inc- inc.com
Harvard business Review – hbr.org
Of greater value, daily email
Peter Bregman – peterbregman.com
The Mix Fix – managementexchange.com
TED – ted.com
51

52. If you’re interested in the subject
(cont’d):
Twitter
Fast Company – @fastcompany
Co.Design – @fastcodesign
Co.Exist – @fastcoexist
Co.Create – @fastcocreate
Inc - @inc
LDRLB - @ldrlb
Stanford Business - @stanfordbiz
Profit Magazine - @profit_magazine
Harvard Biz Review - @harvardbiz
American Management Association - @amashift
52

53. Thank You
Chris Murumets, CEO, LOGiQ3
Email: chris.murumets@logiq3.com
LinkedIn: Chris Murumets
Twitter: @cmurumets
LOGiQ3 Corp
Website: http://www.logiq3.com
Blog: http://www.logiq3.com/blog
Twitter: @LOGiQ3
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/LOGiQ3-
Corp/221087034601971
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/logiq3-corp-
53